Local TED Fellow and ecologist, Eric Berlow, will discuss pack stock in the wilderness of the Sierra Nevada and their effect on the near extinct Yosemite Toad. In this short talk Eric hopes illustrate that a) science has an important role to play in mediating legal and political conflict over conservation policy, and b) science has a limited ability to address the emotional drivers of conservation conflict. Hence, the importance of collaboration science and art.  

Musician / composer Patrick Cress will perform a suite of movements called Yosemite Soundscapes, weaving together field recordings taken from trips to Yosemite’s alpine meadows, with his own compositions for saxophone and bass clarinet. The performance also includes video projection, taken in Yosemite in 2017, after record snowfall the previous winter.